TFF Associates & Themes Blog

Archive for January, 2014

By Richard Falk

In a little noted initiative the General Assembly on November 26, 2013 voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was requested to organize relevant activities in cooperation with governments, the UN system, intergovernmental organizations, and significantly, civil society.

The vote was 110-7, with 56 abstentions, which is more or less reflective of the sentiments now present in international society. Among the seven opponents of the initiative, in addition to Israel, were unsurprisingly its three staunchest supporters, each once a British colony: the United States, Canada, Australia, with the addition of such international heavyweight states as Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Europe and assorted states around the world were among the 56 abstentions, with virtually the entire non-West solidly behind the idea of highlighting solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for peace with justice based on rights under international law.

Three initial observations:

• Those governments that are willing to stand unabashedly with Israel in opposition to the tide of world public opinion are increasingly isolated, and these governments are under mounting public pressure from their own civil societies that seeks a balanced approach that is rights based rather than power dominated.

• The West, in general, is dominated by the abstaining governments that seek the lowest possible profile of being seen as neither for or against, and in those countries where civil society should now be capable of mobilizing more support for the Palestinian struggle.

• The non-West that is, as has long been the case, rhetorically in solidarity with the Palestinian people, but have yet to match their words with deeds, and seem ready to be pushed.

What is also revealing is the argumentation of UN Watch, and others, that denounce this latest UN initiative because it unfairly singles out Israel and ignores those countries that have worse human rights records. Always forgotten here are two elements of the Israel/Palestine conflict Read the rest of this entry »

By Johan Galtung

Not one or a group of persons, not one or a group of countries. But they may serve as instruments for scripts engraved on the deeper recesses of their minds, not the conscious, easily retrievable ones. Scripts that are too trivial, obvious, too painful/shameful and hence repressed. Jung calls them archetypes; they often come in syndromes.

Imagine that deep down an actor–person, gender-generation-race-class, state-nation, region-civilization–is programmed for two forces in the world, one good the other evil, and sooner or later there will be a final battle for the victory of one over the other: the solution.

Dualism-Manicheism-Armageddon for short, DMA even shorter; from the first and last chapters of the Bible, imprinted on the Western mind soon for two millennia. Maybe with some long lasting impact?

Imagine all of the above driven by the opposite script: holism–holons of many units along many dimensions–and dialectics–forces and counter-forces, in plural, in all holons, and transcendence, going beyond, to new dialectics, in a new reality: the solution. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

For the last three years Palestinian prisoners, mainly unlawfully detained in Israeli jails, have been engaged in a series of life threatening hunger strikes to protest administrative detention imprisonment (that is,without indictment, charges, and access to allegedly incriminating evidence), abusive arrest procedures (including nighttime arrests involving brutality in the presence of family members, detention for prolonged interrogations violating international standards, e.g. 22 hours at a time, sleep deprivation), and deplorable prison conditions (including unlawful transfer to Israeli prisons, denial of family visits, solitary confinement for prolonged periods).

No recent Palestinian prisoner has received more attention among the Palestinian than Samer Issawi, released a few days ago after reaching an extraordinary bargain with prison officials last April. He agreed then to stop his hunger strike, which had lasted an incredible 266 days, either partially or completely, in exchange for an Israeli pledge to release him in eight months at the end of 2013.

Notably, Issawi had rejected Israeli earlier offers Read the rest of this entry »

By Sharmine Narwani

An interview with the Iranian Fars News Agency of December 8, 2013 in which the TFF Associate pulls the Western media image of what happens in Syria – and why – apart. She also tells you why she feels a bit more optimistic than most and how foreign fighters must leave Syria to enable the Syrians to pursue an all-inclusive process towards a settlement.

By Jan Oberg

Here is a short – 1:46 min – video about TFF and an appeal for your support.

2013 was a disappointing donation year. We urgently hope you’ll think of peace and TFF in 2014.

If you can’t support us with money, could you be so kind to post or mail the link in your circles?

Many many thanks!

By Jan Oberg

TFF and its founders were awarded the People’s Peace Prize on December 7, 2013 by The Peace Movement at Orust, Sweden – the best in Scandinavia and one that has existed for over 30 years in an amazing public role and staunch adherence to the Gandhian/UN principle of creating peace by peaceful means.

Jan Oberg received the prize on behalf of the foundation at a seminar held at Orust about the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s ignorance – seen through its awards the last years – about the real meaning of Alfred Nobel’s will which you may read here.

While the text here is in Swedish enjoy the photos and get a sense of the lovely people, the atmosphere and the fabulous Nobel dinner.

While this prize is not accompanied by any money, we will that it has something the official Norwegian Nobel Prize does not have: decision-makers who know what peace is and what Alfed Nobel really intended.

Thank so very much for this great encouragement. We promise to continue on the road that is peace…